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Lawmakers are out on another break this week, and will return the week of May 6. The Senate plans to finish an internet sales tax bill and then begin work on a water infrastructure bill when it returns from a one-week recess. Also on tap during the three-week stretch leading to the Memorial Day recess will be a debate over possible replacements for budget sequestration.

Potential market-moving events are on the economic calendar, with a lot of attention to be focused on Wednesday and Friday. The week opens with updates Monday on Personal Income and Outlays, Pending Home Sales and the Dallas Fed index. Tuesday will bring the Employment Cost Index report along with Chicago manufacturing data and an update on consumer confidence. Wednesday is one of the key days as it features the private-sector payroll data from ADP, PMI manufacturing data, the ISM manufacturing update and Construction Spending. But the main attention will be directed to the afternoon when the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) wraps up their two-day meeting. International Trade data comes out Thursday morning along with weekly jobless claims and Productivity and Costs data. But Friday brings the big economic report – Employment. Also out that day will be Factory Orders and the ISM non-manufacturing index. Otherwise, market attention will be focused on any other economic data out of China and Europe plus any central bank moves that may come about. Earnings also will remain a market focus.

For agriculture, today’s Crop Progress update should continue to show slow corn planting progress and combined with the state commentaries, we may learn more about the US winter wheat crop. But that will happen anyway this week as the Wheat Quality Council will send scouts through Plains HRW wheat fields, providing traders with updates on some "ground truth" of what may have happened to the wheat crop from recent freeze events. Thursday brings the Weekly Export Sales report along with updated trade data. Weather forecasts were starting to be more favorable for Midwest planting weather as May arrives and the watch will be on to see if those outlooks remain that way. Any new developments on the Mississippi or Illinois Rivers could also get market attention along with any updates on bird flu out of China.

Cabinet announcements. President Obama today is expected to officially nominate Anthony Foxx, the mayor of Charlotte, N.C., to be his next secretary of transportation. Reports also surfaced that the president has settled on Mike Froman, currently a White House deputy national-security adviser, as his nominee for US trade representative. The president will also soon name Chicago billionaire and Democratic donor Penny Pritzker as Commerce secretary.

EPA administrator vote delay? Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are balking at reported plans by Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to vote the nomination of Gina McCarthy to be the next EPA administrator the week the Senate returns. In a letter, the GOP members said that they supported delaying the nomination. "We ask that you give us the same courtesy while we work through getting our questions for Gina McCarthy answered as well as the information we requested," they wrote.